Canada-Russia

As we watched Canada wallop Germany, we were still unsure as to when they would be playing their quarterfinal game. Then there was the announcement - "Canada next plays Russia at 4:30 tomorrow." I quickly phoned Matt. "Those tickets are for 4:30 tomorrow, right?" Yes. Indeed they were.

The process started many months ago. Nobody believes me. But it all came down to careful planning. During the inital round of ticket purchases, none of the games had countries attached. Buying a preliminary ticket became a massive crapshoot. The gold medal tickets were too expensive. The semifinals seemed to be a bit unreasonable too. But the quarters...why, they were hardly more than a preliminary game. As well, there were only 4 of them and I speculated that they would make all attempts to put Canada in to the time zone that suited the East Coast of Canada the best. So we went for the 4:30 tickets and it worked out.

I was pretty happy to go to a Canada game and it seemed even more exciting as the hype for the Russia game was crazy. I arrived early and took in the atmosphere. I think every single person going in was wearing either Russia or Canada merchandise of some type. It was pretty crazy.

The seats we had were top bowl, second row back from the edge, right above the 1st/3rd period Canada goal. It was the best vantage point I've had in the top bowl at GM Place. It gave good perspective on the game. We were also able to see the crowd of people rushing the Wayner, asking for autographs.
The crowd, the signs, the crazy Russians, the excessive amounts of beer. It was all just too much for the senses. When Canada scored it's first goal...holy shit. I've never witnessed such an eruption in person before. High fives ran rampant. It was a crazy scene.

The jubilance lent itself well to more beer. As the game became a bit of a blowout everything got a bit muddy. It's all now just a haze of red and beers. I add pictures just to prove that I was there.

I said to Matt at some point in the second period that I wished it wasn't turning into as much of a blowout. His response was "I think we should take it. Lets go get more beer." Seemed like a fitting theme for the night.